MTNL eyes Rs 5,000 cr from its lands in Delhi, Mumbai

State-run telecom provider Mahanagar Telephone Nigam (MTNL) has mandated a consortium led by global real estate advisory firm DTZ to unlock roughly Rs 5,000 crore from its land holdings in Mumbai and Delhi. The ailing PSU also directed the consultants to explore a combination of sale, lease and redevelopment of land parcels through public-private partnership as part of the monetisation strategy.

DTZ, which has been operating in India for close to a decade, piped other global real estate advisors Jones Lang LaSalle, CBRE, and Cushman & Wakefield to win the bid. The process of strategy formulation as to how MTNL's marquee properties would be divested could start as early as next week, said people citied above.

All the low hanging properties could be divested before the end of this calendar, he added. MTNL holds about 100 land parcels in NCR and Mumbai, including a prized 20-acre property situated in West Delhi, which is estimated to sport a price tag of Rs 2,000 crore. MTNL, the principal provider of fixed line telephone in Mumbai and Delhi, had called for bids last year to raise funds from real estate even as its core business continued to bleed.

The telecom provider's losses widened 26 per cent to Rs 1,093 crore in the September quarter over the same period a year ago.